


Could've Been Good

by StarsInTheRiver



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (It's definitely explicit sex but like....), (due to the sex pollen), (very vaguely described though), Angst, Character Analysis, Consent Issues, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Kidnapping, Oral Sex, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Power Imbalance, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex Pollen, Sort Of, Vaginal Sex, i dont know how to tag this but extremely emotionally unhealthy sex, i only tagged it m/f because i guess it technically is but MY doctor is always nb, in a genderqueer kind of way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24584503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInTheRiver/pseuds/StarsInTheRiver
Summary: The Master sets a trap for the Doctor and does everything he can to convince her that she isn't better than him. It nearly works.I started off writing a dark sex pollen fic but then I got distracted in the buildup and also really worked up about the timeless child reveal so this is like 50% sex and 75% my opinions on that (I like it theoretically but GOD I hope they keep the central themes of the show in mind as they expand on it).I tried to keep this as far from straight noncon as I could but the premise is pretty dark and things get pretty bad at a couple points, absolutely no aftercare, especially for the Master. The Doctor ends up ok though. More specific warning in notes
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	Could've Been Good

**Author's Note:**

> CHECK END NOTES FOR SPECIFIC TW

The trap he’d set for her on Gallifrey had been… weakly disguised at best, and she’d walked into it confident that she knew what she was getting into.

She’d ordered Yaz (with some difficulty) to stay behind, sure she could handle the Master and absolutely unwilling to risk him getting his hands on another one of her friends. 

It wasn’t like she just dove in, though. She’d had a plan- well, four and a half of them, tucked into various pockets and one into her sock. 

Then she’d lost consciousness. It was gas, something thick in the air she hadn’t detected until her head started to spin and the door had already slammed shut behind her. She’d run for the window but the corridor had been long, and she underestimated how many slow, shallow breaths it would take to turn her legs to jelly. She remembered falling, but reality had faded to black by the time she hit the floor. 

She’d woken up with her hands bound above her head, coatless and shoeless in a dimly lit corner of a vast, fire-eaten room. 

The Master had been standing a few meters away, her coat and shoes in a heap under the small table where he was bent over a disconcerting array of beakers.

He had ignored her attempts to engage him in reasonable discussion as he prepared a solution at an infuriatingly careful pace.

And now he was standing too close to her. 

He had a needle buried in her stomach, but even for that he was far, far too close. She could feel the heat coming from him, his body nearly but not quite pressing up against her own. She had stared him down as he’d approached, but when he looked down to insert the needle she had turned her head away. She couldn’t stand the feeling of his face inches from hers, and for the first time she was grateful for the screen of hair that was constantly impairing her field of view

Whatever he was injecting her with, it burned, and when he pulled the needle away there was a sharp tang mixed in with the scent of her blood. 

When he was finished, he backed off and sat, legs crossed and a smug expression on his face. It didn’t take long for her to realize what was in the syringe, and her lips curled into a snarl. 

“Are you serious?”

The Master hummed in confirmation, his eyes laughing.

“This- this is low, even for you. I knew you were pathetic and immature, but-” she cut herself off with a barely-swallowed gasp. She’d stepped forward as much as her bindings allowed when she raised her voice at him, and although she was doing her best to ignore the chemicals rushing through her veins the sudden motion had sent such a jolt through her that the insults she had queued up for him scattered like ash. Already she could feel the ache between her legs, parts of herself she generally ignored suddenly agonizingly sensitive. There was no way she was going to be able to fight this thing off. She took a slow, long breath before looking back up at the Master. She made no effort to disguise the hatred in her eyes or her voice when she spoke.

“Just tell me what you want.”

He made a face, a sheepish, mocking little twist of his lips, and for the first time since she had awoken in this place real fear crept into her gut. “Well, here’s the thing. I’ll be the first to admit that I have, sometimes, a tendency to react a bit… excessively” The Doctor raised an eyebrow, despite the profound, creeping heat that was beginning to make focusing on his words something of a challenge “-but I’ve had some time to mull things over and I think I understand where I went wrong with it.”

Her unwanted arousal was momentarily shoved to the side by a different sort of rush, her vision going almost hazy at the edges as hatred coursed through her. 

“Oh, you mean the way you turned our home planet to _ash?_ ” 

But he only waved his hand dismissively. “Come on, Doctor. You know as well as I do those arrogant bastards had it coming.”

“You destroyed billions of innocent lives,” she said. Her voice was a touch too breathless for her tone to be truly threatening, but the mocking calm on his face still melted instantly into a snarl.

“Don’t act like you haven’t done the _exact_ same thing.” 

He was right, but the violent wrench of shame in her gut was consumed almost immediately by the creeping inferno of hormones and she was given no time to dwell on it. 

“Besides,” he continued, “you know what they were capable of. The nightmares their petty, self-righteous... _ignorance_ could bring.” His voice got no louder as he spoke, but there was a frenzied quality creeping into it that the Doctor felt might be ideally avoided in the current situation. 

“Fine,” she said. “What’s your point, then?”

His anger faded like smoke, and he gave her a sad little smile.

“What is it ever?”

He started move towards her, but seemingly thought better of it when she snarled (her thoughts were already getting hard to hold on to, the absolute last thing she needed was anybody near her) and instead stuck his hands into his pockets to watch her with an air of something between contentment and weariness.

“I just worry, Doctor, that I might have given that bloated ego of yours something of an adrenaline shot. I promise you it wasn’t my intention, but now I see that I might have, in my anger... built you up a bit.” He smiled coldly. “After all, being lied to and used by the Time Lords- it doesn’t exactly make you special does it? I suppose they’ve always big on child experimentation.”

It was getting harder and harder to focus, much less care about his self-pitying contemplations of Gallifrey’s moral crimes. She managed to keep her voice more or less even as she replied, though.

“I never said I was special.”

The Master laughed at that, a long, genuine laugh that made her skin crawl. 

“You’re so _funny_ , Doctor. You’ve had an ego the size of Gallifrey since before we could read. You knew you were different, I suppose.” He took a step towards her, and there something manic about the movement that made the Doctor think better of snarling again. “But, after all this time you should know that different doesn’t always mean better.”

He held her gaze for a moment, and a wild, threatening energy hung between them in the half second before he turned and began to pace. But the drugs had worked their way into the deepest parts of her nervous system, and even after his attention shifted back away the Doctor’s hearts pounded, the mere idea of being approached by a warm, living body beating through her like a war drum, focusing- well, it didn’t matter where it was focusing, because she wasn’t going to give in to it. She gripped the ropes that bound her wrists and tried to fix her attention away from the internal chaos, directing the whole of her mind towards the only distraction available.

“Honestly,” the Master said after a moment, “those idiots on the high council screwed themselves over. They left you with that vague feeling that you were different, that you were special, but they left it up to you to figure out why. Of course you assumed you were just naturally better and brighter than the rest-”

“I didn’t,” the Doctor mumbled. She didn’t even have the mental space to be ashamed of how wrecked she sounded. Every nerve was thrumming with an awful energy that pooled far too low in her gut, that clouded her brain and made it hard to think. She’d closed her eyes, her body’s reaction even to just seeing the (not entirely unattractive) form of her old friend starting to become problematic. But still, it was only getting worse, even the sound of his voice was tugging at some deep part of herself she thought she’d permanently buried. Reality was taking on a dreamlike quality and when he kept talking as though she hadn’t spoken she found herself wondering if she had only imaged the words coming out. 

“My point,” he was saying, “is only that maybe wiping away what I’m sure must have the lowest moments of your life may not have been the best way to keep you in your place.”

The Doctor felt her lips twitch into another growl, but it was more instinct than anything. Then suddenly he was in front of her again, all hot breath and pounding hearts, and she wanted to shrink away but she found herself leaning forward against the ropes that bound her, something deep inside her desperate for the electric brush of skin against skin. 

“Can you imagine what it must have been like?” His voice was low and far too close, but she found her face tilting towards it even as she kept her eyes clenched shut. “Do you think the memory’s still in there somewhere? Try and imagine it, Doctor. How small you must have felt, how scared. Do you think it hurt when they made you regenerate? Do you think you understood what they were doing when they made you burn, again and again, in the name of progress? _Tell_ me you can feel it _._ ”

The Doctor heard a pitiful whimper, and it took her a moment to connect the sound with the awful, gaping hurt that had blossomed in her chest. Sharp as grief, enough to be painful even through the all-encompassing heat of the drugs, but as far as she could tell entirely without cause. She _didn’t_ remember, no matter how many long nights in prison she had spent trying. The Master was laughing again, although the sound was softer than before. 

“Good. I hoped you might. Fun little drug, that. Brings a lot of deep, primal sort of things up.”

He moved away again, but the Doctor barely noticed. It had been overwhelming before but now it was hellish, foreign emotions she couldn’t pin down as real or imagined flooding her brain like some subconscious pipe had burst open. 

“Stop,” she heard herself gasping. “Stop it, you’re just messing with my head.”

“Well. Yeah, of course.” He was close again, as if from nowhere, his breath on her cheek, then just as suddenly gone. Or was he still there, had he been there the whole time? She shook her head, as if she could knock something loose that would force time to start working properly again, but the air was heavy and weighed on her movements as if she were underwater. She tried desperately to remember everything she knew about what he might have injected her with, but beyond pinning it as some sort of brutal, certainly illegal aphrodisiac… there was too much rushing through her head, she couldn’t think. The sharp smell when he’d injected her had been, not exactly unfamiliar but nothing she could put a name to either. Maybe some sort of homebrew mix of biological and synthesized chemicals if she had to guess. There were so many types of intoxicant in the universe. Drugs to stimulate emotion, drugs to create false memories, millions upon millions of varieties that loosened a person’s grip on reality. She couldn’t trust anything she was feeling right now. She took a slow, shuddering breath. It hurt, it all hurt so _much_ , but she focused on what she knew was real. The ropes. The floor. The air in her lungs. 

Then she opened her eyes again and was reminded, with a feeling like firecrackers going off in her lower stomach, that sometimes drugs do work hand-in-hand with reality.

He was watching her, unbearable smugness in his eyes, and she knew that every emotion bubbling up when she looked at him was her own. Magnified, sure, beyond anything she had ever experienced even in the deepest, most passionate moments between them, but still hers. There was love, and lust- familiar but entirely unwanted, and she was almost euphorically relieved to find the burning hatred that accompanied them. The lust was as horrible as it was alluring, the way it crept through her nearly foreign in this body, but the _hatred._ It went deeper, to her very bones, the most natural and familiar thing in the world. It was a feeling she had spent lifetimes running from but now she clung to it like a hunk of smoldering wreckage in a wild, storming ocean- better to burn her hands than to drown.

But that didn’t mean she could escape the water altogether. The Master was just standing there, waiting, and through the haze she had a sense of dread that there would only be one way out of the situation. There were drugs like this, certainly, that wore off in time. There were some that would just kill their victim. But she knew her old friend, and if she’d understood his ranting correctly, he had a goal. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he thought he had made her feel small- and he would want her to live on with the memory. She was fairly sure she knew what the answer would be, but she asked anyways. 

“Tell me what you _want._ ”

He sauntered towards her, hands behind his back, still grinning. “Getting a bit uncomfortable, are we?”

She didn’t reply, holding her hatred front and center in her mind and trying not to let herself get caught up in his wide, dark eyes. He let the moment linger, then he shrugged and continued with his monologuing. 

“Honestly, when I think about it, I’m almost embarrassed I didn’t guess it from the very beginning. You always picked things up so quickly, and I thought you were so _brilliant-_ but the whole time it was just that you’d done it all before. That ghost of a memory, deep in your neurons, firing back up the way they already had a thousand times. Mind wipes are a tricky thing, Doctor… the brain is resilient. There is nothing in this universe that loves information like a brain. Especially yours. Still not sure how much of that is what they did to you and how much is just you being a natural pain in the ass.” There was so much contempt in his eyes, and for half a moment a pang of loss cut through the swirling torrent inside her.

“Don’t pretend you weren’t the same,” she said quietly. “We were the nosiest kids on Gallifrey. Still are, suppose.” She felt a short, harsh laugh free itself from her lips, but the sound was distant and strange. 

His lips twisted into something that could have almost been a smile. “Mm. We were, weren’t we?”

She had sworn to herself she would bite him if he dared to touch her, but when his fingers brushed her chin she only gasped at the pure electricity of it and allowed him to tilt her face towards his. The contempt in his features had faded somewhat, replaced by a smug sort of calm that still stoked the anger smoldering in her chest- but his face was so close, and his fingertips shockingly soft against her skin. Her whole body begged her to lean into it, it was all she could do to keep still. She could hear herself panting, could feel the way her lips were parted (invitingly, her brain offered, although she forced the thought away with all the violence she could muster) but she couldn’t help it. The air in the room was so thin, as though she’d been running for hours in a low-oxygen atmosphere instead of standing still on the surface of her home planet. _Not my home planet_ , she started to think- then the Master dragged the pad of his thumb over her cheek and there was no room in her brain for anything but the feel of it. 

“You really don’t look so good.” His smile might have been mistaken for tender, but a laugh still played at the corners of his eyes. “Are you sure there isn’t something you need?”

The rage flared up again, surpassing the need pounding through her just long enough for her to spit in his face. He drew back, more surprise than anger on his face. Still a healthy amount of both, though. 

“Interesting choice.” he said, and the Doctor couldn’t help being pleased to hear the amusement had finally gone from his tone. “Or have you not figured out what’s going to happen to you yet?”

“Think I’ve got the general idea, yeah.”

It was only half true- there were still a hundred ways a drug trip like this one could end, but at this point she would sooner regenerate than let him know she was afraid.

“Hm,” he said, and she could tell he didn’t believe her. “Well, if you’re fine with it, I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but watch.”

He turned away, and the Doctor did her best not to care. She closed her eyes, head down again, trying to keep herself from writhing from the awful energy. It was all through her, but by far the strongest between her legs. It was like the worst itch she’d ever had in her life and her body begged her to squirm, press her legs together, anything to relieve it for a second. But she knew that would only make it worse, and she was genuinely unsure if she’d be able to keep from begging if that happened. She had a feeling that getting her to beg was his only real goal, and the thought fueled her rage just enough to keep her grip on self control.

“You know,” he said, and when she looked up he was seated, legs propped up on the little table. “As long as you cooperate, it won’t kill you. Although, I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind watching you go out that way.” He smirked, pausing to look her over in a way that made her skin prickle. "It’s still going to get much worse. Not that it would keep you alive, but maybe I’d give you one of your arms back, just to let you try and... relieve the tension. I don’t imagine you’d be able to stop yourself.” He rubbed absently at his own crotch, and the Doctor clamped her eyes shut against the wave of disgust and need that coursed through her. 

“Not today, though. This doesn’t need to be so dramatic. Honestly, I’d say I’m doing you a favor. Doesn’t it get exhausting, walking around with that enormous _fucking_ head of yours? Don’t you get tired of being better than everyone else?” 

She heard him stand, and when she blinked her eyes open the world was swimming but she could make out the shape of him mere feet away, hands in his coat pockets. 

“It was cruel of them to take those memories.” It must have been the drugs, she was sure of it, but for a moment she couldn’t hear anything but genuine sadness in his voice. “Things could have been so different between us. They treated us the same.” He was close again, looking at her with something like pleading, but she couldn’t bear it and turned her head away. There was silence for a moment, then a sigh. 

“But no. They couldn’t. I suppose they thought it was better to let you believe in your natural superiority than to let you remember they way they hurt you, the way they exploited your curse for their own selfish ends. Because, let’s be honest with each other, Doctor- we both know immortality is no kind blessing. They knew it too. They made sure to keep death for themselves while they leeched off your unnatural, endless existence for as long as they pleased, reset your mind as many times as they needed to keep you from going insane under the weight of it.”

If she had been in a different mental state, the Doctor might have been relieved to hear him echoing the thoughts that had been tormenting her every unoccupied moment for months. She might have been grateful for the chance to sit and talk with someone who truly understood. But as it was, her hearts ached. Why did he have to do it like _this?_ He burned Gallifrey for what they did to her, then turned right around and burned her too. It was true, what he said- things could have been so different between them. 

The chemicals swirling within her were already so overwhelming she didn’t realize she was crying until the tears forced their way from her screwed-shut eyes. She didn’t even have the energy to be ashamed, and when the Master brushed them from her cheeks she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. _I hate you,_ she wanted to say, but when she looked again she found the mania drained from his features. He looked almost uncertain and although she hated him for that too it was only an exhausted, powerless sort of hatred.

“Please,” she said. “Just let me go. I know you’re angry, but this isn’t what you want. This won’t fix anything.”

Wrong move. The coldness settled back over his features, and he turned away. 

“Don’t tell me what I want, Doctor. Besides, at this point, there’s no way out but through. I didn’t even bring an antidote. I know what a nasty little pickpocket you can be.”

There was her anger again, and she clenched her jaw against the violent words that threatened to pour out. “Fine,” she said instead, “but you’ve made your point, just tell me how to- how to make it stop.”

His horrible smile returned. “Now that’s easy,” he said. “What you’re experiencing- well, it’s a mix of things, but mainly a fun little hormone from a species with a... hectic sort of mating season.” He leaned casually against the back of his chair, as though they were having a lighthearted scientific discussion. “All of them go simultaneously into a wild heat- very intense, very hard to ignore. Well. I’m sure I don’t need to explain that part to you.” He grinned. “It gets stronger and stronger, hijacking more and more of the body’s energy, until the individual mates. And if they don’t, well. A body only has so much energy to burn.”

She actually knew the species he was talking about. She’d visited once by accident, immediately after the mating season, and the state of the bodies that had littered the planet’s surface- she shook her head to clear the memory. 

“Easy enough fix, though,” he continued. “You’re a social animal, so you’ve got the brain structure for it. The chemicals your brain produces in response to physical contact, and the ones from sexual climax, released at the same time will clear your system right out.” He smiled as though giving her some friendly advice, and she wished desperately that he were closer so that she could kick his teeth in. 

“So what, you’re going to sit here until I either burn up or beg you to fuck me?” 

He held his hand innocently to his chest. “Well, not if you don’t want me to. I could always give your pet a call, have her come pick you up. I’m sure she’d be more than pleased to… take care of you.”

The image forced itself suddenly into her mind- Yaz’s thumbs brushing the Doctor’s hipbones, her deep, warm eyes looking up at her as she leaned forward- but she shook it away almost immediately and focused instead on the horrified expression she knew she would see if Yaz found her bound liked this, when the Doctor explained exactly what had happened and what she needed to survive. She wouldn’t do that to her friend.

The ache was getting bad though. The image the Master had painted had taken root in her mind, and thought she might be able to feel it already- the need burning through her like wildfire, on its way to consuming her entirely if she didn’t put it out. Even if she could get her thoughts straight long enough to think of a way out, there was no time. 

“Okay,” she said, and she felt herself blush as the energy kicked up a notch, her body realizing what she was asking for. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on the ash-covered floor even as she heard him stand and take a few easy steps towards her. 

“What was that, love?” She looked up now to see him smiling, fingers raised halfway to his ears. For half a moment she wondered, if she just went ahead and regenerated, could she use the excess energy to take him down with her?

Instead, she growled, “I’m not playing your little game. Hurry up before I change my mind.”

He clicked his tongue. “That’s not a very nice way to ask someone to save your life.”

“Fuck _off_.” Her voice was breathless, but she was so close to getting what she needed it was hard to care. “I know you want this worse than I do, hurry up before I just have Yaz take me somewhere I can screw the first interested life form I run into.”

Now that pissed him off, and she treasured the look on his face for the moment it took him to reach her- then he had one hand on her throat and the other on the rope that bound her wrists, and the combination of pain and drug-sharpened delight that resulted forced everything else from her mind. It was all she could do not to moan and lean into his grip. 

“Watch your tongue, Doctor. I could do anything to you right now. I could strip you down, tie those legs apart, tease you until you’re crying… then walk away let your human find you like that.” The Doctor’s hips twitched forward involuntarily at the thought, and she felt her ears go pink at the loss of control. The Master laughed. “Is that a _yes, please, Master?_ ”

“No,” she gasped, vision fading out from the hand cutting off her brain’s blood supply. “Just- come _on_.”

He waited a few more long, hazy seconds, then let go. She fell to the ground, wrists suddenly unbound and blood rushing deafeningly in her ears. She dragged herself to her knees as soon as she regained the tiniest bit of bodily control, but when she got there she found herself stopped short by a hand in her hair. She looked up, and her stomach turned in disgust at the expression of victory in his eyes. But there were no humans around them this time, no silly constructs about sex and hierarchy to make her feel ashamed. He wanted to tease her? Well, he wasn’t the only one who could play games.

She tried to ignore the pounding of her hearts, the frantic, burning ache between her own legs- she would get her satisfaction, she was sure of it now. But first, she wanted to make him share in the absolute _agony_ of her need. She looked up at him, right into his eyes, and watched the composure drain from them as she curled her fingers around the bulge already threatening to break free of his trousers. 

He clearly wasn’t expecting it, and she could feel the way he nearly crumped to his own knees. She didn’t give him a single second to recover- she had always been remarkably good with her hands, and she worked her way slowly up his length until he was audibly keening, the grip in her hair almost painfully tight. She didn’t mind. She let him pull her closer, closer- then moved to the side at the last second to press her lips to the sensitive place beneath his hipbone. 

He gasped, and she smirked against him before reaching up to pull his trousers down to his knees and leaning in to do it again, to trace a line of kisses across his thigh, away from his exposed cock. She could hear him panting above her, and she smiled as she pressed her lips to him a final time before biting down, hard. He made a sound somewhere between a scream and a moan, and gripped her hair so tightly she had to let herself be pulled back or risk him yanking it out by the roots.

She gave him a few seconds while she listened to his hard, ragged breathing before reaching up to pull at his wrist with one hand and wrapping the other back around his cock. Her message was clear- let go if you want it- and after a moment he relented.

She stroked him slowly, a smile tugging at her lips when he thrust into her hand like a desperate teenager. Although, if she was being fully honest, the urge to reach down and grind against her own hand was making it hard to concentrate. She’d been doing her best to ignore the all-consuming itch, keeping her legs parted and her hands busy- she knew as soon as she touched herself it would all be over, any chance of keeping her self control vaporized in an instant. But that didn’t make her want it any less, and she squirmed and tug her fingernails into the Master’s wrist even as her thumb made a complex spiral over the head of his cock. 

He groaned, free hand reaching up to brace himself against the wall, and she figured he wouldn’t notice if she was a little distracted. Especially if she gave him a good reason to be. She did her best to tease him a bit first, starting and stopping, applying just the right amount of pressure then taking her hand away entirely, and when she thought he was probably moments away from shoving her over and screwing her right there on the filthy floor she leaned forward and took him in her mouth, all the way down to the base. 

The sound he made… like his heart was breaking and being healed all at once. It went straight to the core of her, and combined with the feel of him in her mouth, the solid weight of it on her tongue, she couldn’t help herself anymore. She dragged her tongue up the underside of him, then back down, then up once more, trying to set a rhythm for herself before her brain turned to mush. Then she shoved her hand down her pants, and the world around her vanished in a white hot wave of pleasure. 

She could hear herself moan, could feel herself freeze but for her hand and her tongue, moving reflexively together over her clit and the head of his cock respectively. But it was distant, hazy, entirely unimportant next to the way it felt as she ground against her own fingers through her boxers.

She’d done this a few times before, although it had been more out of curiosity than any kind of need. The motions, however, she was more than familiar with- lifetimes of misadventures had left her with what you could call a well-rounded sexual education- and her fingers knew exactly where to press

She barely noticed the weight of his cock vanishing from her tongue, but she certainly didn’t miss it when he shoved her, interrupting the motion of her hand and knocking the air from her lungs as she hit the ground. She only half cared, and started right back up again until a strong hand grabbed her wrist and pinned both hands above her head. 

She had been right about it getting worse- she had compared it earlier to the most overwhelming itch she’d ever felt, but compared to this new torture it had been like a mosquito bite. She pressed her thighs together, writhing, trying to get any stimulation at all to her aching clit. She heard herself make a pathetic, desperate keening when the Master forced her legs apart and shoved himself between them, but even if she’d had the room in her brain to be humiliated there wouldn’t have been time. His body was warm and solid and perfect against hers, and between his legs he was hard and pressing up _perfectly_ against that awful itch. She would have clung to him if her arms had been free, but as it was she pressed her hips up against his, grinding in an instinctual rhythm that drew a low groan from him. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck, and his breath was fast and uneven on her skin as he thrust back against her. Suddenly, she was desperate to feel his skin on hers and she struggled against the hand on her wrists. She had no leverage, though, and he stopped the movement of his hips against hers long enough to pull back and grin. The effect was a bit ruined by how clearly wrecked he was, sweating and panting and pupils dilated from arousal, but it was still irritating. 

“What,” she managed to gasp, “you wanna stop?”

“Please, you couldn’t stop now if your life depended on it. Lucky for you it’s the other way around.”

She scowled and thrashed halfheartedly against him. “Bastard. Gimme my hands back. And take your shirt off.”

He lingered for a long moment, his eyes tracing up her neck and slowly over her face. He was infuriating. 

“ _Please_ ,” she finally forced out, and his cock twitched against her thigh. He nodded, just a touch too quickly, and let her go. 

They were both naked in seconds, the Master yanking her trousers and shorts off while she dealt with the shirt and bra. The floor was freezing cold and covered with a layer of ash that didn’t bear thinking about, and fortunately she was given no time to do so. The Master’s hands were soft, but the way he used them wasn’t, and she cried out when a tender caress down her sides ended with his nails digging viciously into her hips. Then he was leaning down, and she only had a moment to gasp at the feel of his hot breath on her most sensitive area before it was his tongue instead and she was _screaming_ from the slick, hot pressure of it.

He didn’t start slow, didn’t give her a single moment to adjust- he pinned her hips with a crushing grip, refusing to let her wriggle away as he licked her in a way that felt less like scratching an itch and more like having a cattle prod pressed into her. His tongue was incredible, hot and wet and far, far too strong for the sensitive nerves he was using it on, and she genuinely didn’t know whether she was thrashing to escape it or get closer. 

“Please,” she heard herself gasp. “I need-” but she couldn’t finish. Half from the sheer overwhelming sensation he was forcing on her, and half because she knew that what she needed was more of his body pressed against hers, and the shame that accompanied that realization was even stronger than the need itself. 

Instead she let one hand reach down to his soft hair, trying to tug him back up. She didn’t- she didn’t _exactly_ want him, but there was something deep inside her where the memories of her first love, her first time, were kept, and right now it longed for the intimacy she would always associate with the act. Would always associate with him. 

She slid her hand lower and dug her fingernails into his shoulder, just to make herself feel a little better about the whole situation. 

He finally lifted his head, a smug grin on his face. “Sorry, thought you were gonna finish your sentence.”

She growled and tugged at him again, but he didn’t budge. “Come on, let’s just- get it done, yeah?”

It was only a fraction of a second, but she swore she saw genuine hurt cross his features. Then he shifted his hand to thumb at her clit, and her eyes snapped shut as she tried not to grind pathetically into it. 

“What, not enjoying yourself?” 

His hands felt even better than her own had, so perfect it was like they had been designed for this express purpose. That only made the sting of his mocking words worse, though, and she turned her face away from him, trying to hide pain and pleasure both. 

His hand hesitated, but didn’t stop, and after a few long moments a gasp of air was forced from her lungs when he pressed his lips pressed softly to the same sensitive crook in her leg where she’d kissed him only minutes before. She’d only done it to torment him, and almost genuinely regretted it now as she bit her lip to keep from whimpering, his tongue tracing patterns that sent razor-sharp electric shocks right through her. It was wonderful, and it was absolute agony, and she wanted to shove him off but she _couldn't_ , it was all she could do to lay still and wait for it to end. 

It only took a few seconds for him to stop, but it was a long few seconds. She expected him to move on to a new torment but he stayed where he was, his breath against her thigh strangely slow, and the room fell silent but for her own frantic breathing echoing off the concrete floor. 

The stillness stretched on so long she was seconds away from giving in to the intolerable need still throbbing away inside her and just begging him to fuck her and get it over with when he finally moved. Slowly, but not like he was teasing her anymore- more like he was unsure. He moved up her body, close enough that she could feel the energy coming from his skin but stopping just short of touching. Still turned away, she felt his breath creep up her body until he was at her neck, hair brushing her jaw. He finally touched her then, body pressed hesitantly against hers, his fingers wrapping themselves around her upper arm and his face not quite pressed into the crook of her neck. She could feel the strange quality of his breath, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words to come. She prayed for him not to find them. She didn’t want a reason to even begin to consider forgiving him. 

Maybe her prayer was answered, or maybe he could just sense her thoughts- either way, they stayed like that for a few lingering moments before he sat up, arranging himself back between her legs, one hand sliding beneath her back to pull her up with him and onto his lap. She let him. Despite the arousal still thrumming through every nerve in her body, the Doctor was getting tired. It was too much, it had been too much for a while, and she let her head fall forward onto the Master’s shoulder. It had the added advantage of keeping her from having to look at him. 

She hated him for the gentleness with which he reached between them, fingers brushing over her clit before moving lower, a single finger slipping easily inside. It was- not an entirely new sensation, but so, so different from when she’d tried out one or two of her own, and she couldn’t keep herself from clutching at him, one hand on his upper arm and one on his back. His breath caught right alongside hers, and she could feel his heartbeats speed up against her chest. 

“Are you… have you done this before? In this body?”

The surprise and unease in his voice was beyond grating, and she didn’t bother to keep the irritation out of her own when she replied. 

“Why do you care? Scared of hurting me all the sudden?”

He said nothing, but she could feel his hesitation in the rhythm of his breathing, and she twitched her hips against his fingers trying to get him to snap out of it. To her relief he relented, and another finger slipped in beside the first.

She knew he was right, the two fingers already accompanied by the slightest twinge of pain, but she didn’t care. So what if it hurt? This _should_ hurt, she’d had enough of tenderness. It was only right for the physical sensation to match the truth of what he was doing to her. 

His fingers had only been probing, stretching her out, but now they curled suddenly and she found herself once again grinding against him in genuine, desperate pleasure. She couldn’t help it, but it was all she could do not to moan. He knew _exactly_ where to press. 

The third finger was genuinely painful, despite how embarrassingly wet the combination of drugs and teasing had gotten her, and she almost asked him to stop. Almost. The Master still seemed to sense her discomfort though, and pulled it back out immediately despite her frustrated growl. 

The Doctor dug her fingernails into his back, hard enough to draw blood, and he hissed in pain. 

“Fine,” he growled, although it still didn't quite match his energy from before. “Have it your way, then.”

He pulled his hand away from her to stroke himself back to full hardness. She couldn’t help being annoyed at that too- he’d always gotten off on hurting her before, despite how desperately she might have wished otherwise. He should be rock hard, biting and scratching and fighting with her for control. What gave him the right to have _feelings_ just because she wasn’t responding the way he’d imagined she would to his plans to force her into sex?

Apparently, though, his guilt wasn’t too severe- he was hard again in seconds, and she shifted her weight onto her knees to straddle him properly, still leaning forward to keep her face hidden. He pulled her closer with an arm around her back, and her hearts started to pound again as he lined himself up. She knew he was of an average size, but pressed up against her now he felt impossibly huge. 

She almost expected him to ask if she was ready, but his sadism had apparently returned with his arousal and he entered her with a hard, sudden thrust. 

She’d been anticipating discomfort, had prepared to swallow whatever noises her traitorous body tried to make. But she hadn’t expected the hurt to be quite so… intimate. It was startlingly sharp, but the worst of it faded quickly enough leaving her with only a low undercurrent of genuine pain accompanying the overwhelming fullness, strangely duller yet more intense than it had been in any of her other bodies. Mainly, he just felt _big_ , and he gave her no time to adjust before he was thrusting up into her, trying to open her up enough to take him all the way. 

She half tried to pull away, putting her weight again onto her knees, but his hands were tight around her waist and it was mostly his hips doing the work. And it wasn't like it didn't feel good, despite the pain.

She made an effort to relax, but had barely begun to try when he thrust hard and struck something deep and unbelievably sensitive inside her, and she heard herself crying out, felt her whole body spasm, torn between pulling away and fucking herself back down against him to feel it again. She wasn't given a choice, though- apparently it felt good for him too, or maybe he just liked her reaction, because his fingernails dug in hard and he found the spot again and again until her cries faded to gasps and her world had tunneled in until all she could feel were the steady bursts of brilliant sensation and his feverish, panting presence all around her.

She leaned into him, she couldn’t help it. It was absolutely and _only_ the drugs that suddenly made her need to be pressed entirely against him more than she needed air. It must have been, because she hadn’t felt this awful, aching hunger for the touch of another being in _lifetimes_. She’d figured she’d outgrown it. 

She did her best to focus her last dregs of mental control on hating it, hating the way the drugs flooded her brain with reward hormones and made her feel as though the touch of the other Time Lord were filling a gaping chasm in her chest. But despite everything about the situation, it was a difficult thing to hate. It didn’t hold a candle to the intimacy she knew they were capable of, the way it had been when she’d still trusted him enough to open her mind to his (at least she wasn’t too far gone to lose control of _that_ ) but… there was something like a shadow of it in the feel of his skin against hers. 

If she’d had more control over her thoughts she might have dwelled on the way the Master hesitated before embracing her fully, even as she clung to him as tightly as the rise and fall of her body would allow. But it was all she could do in the moment to just be. She stopped fighting, allowed the chemicals to just wash over her, let the exquisite, intimate pain of every thrust overwhelm her mind and bring her closer to the edge that was finally in sight. 

And that edge… it was probably safe to say that the Doctor had probably experienced considerably more orgasms than most beings in the universe, but the heat that was building in her core was beyond anything she had known before. Maybe the cold of the room helped, certainly the drugs did, but the pure _energy_ she felt building- it was like the core of a sun, a nuclear reaction powering the fire that burned through the rest of her. She had the frantic, fleeting thought that he’d lied to her, that this much energy could only dissipate in the kind of explosion that could take out galaxies, that this had all been a complex murder-suicide plot and as soon as she came they would vanish in a blaze that would destroy any trace of them and Gallifrey and echo across space and time.

But the thought dissipated just as quickly as she realized she didn’t care. Annihilation or an awkward, sweaty disentangling of bodies- it didn’t matter. She needed to come, there was no stopping it now. 

She found herself with a hand on his neck, his skin chilled from sweat in the freezing room despite the heat she could feel pounding beneath. His breath stuttered in her ear when her hands pressed tight against the sensitive skin, but she didn’t care. Or maybe she did, on some deep level, but certainly not in any sort of sympathetic way- her half subconscious response was only to lean in, let him feel her sharp teeth and her hot, ragged breaths on the crook of his neck until his own gasps of air were tinged with a high-pitched whine. 

She could feel the shiver that passed through his throat, his shoulders, through the hands that still refused to hold her as tightly as she needed. She felt it run across her own skin and the feel of him like that, weak and hesitating as she held the most vulnerable part of his body between her teeth and nails- it sent an overwhelming wave of some feral, predatory instinct straight to her burning core. She was far gone enough that the fire consuming her no longer differentiated between the types of passion she fed it, and this new variety swept through her like a hurricane. She couldn’t feel the cold of the room, was barely aware of the sounds of their bodies and frantic breaths. There was only the vast and endless need. 

Distantly, she heard him whine, felt him clutch at her when she bit down and tasted blood. _Finally._ She sunk her teeth into him again and again, not quite breaking the skin this time but leaving a vicious trail of bite marks across his neck and shoulder until he was clinging to her so tightly she felt as though their bodies might meld into one. Then, as if in a dream, her fingers were yanking at his hair and her mouth had moved from his shoulder, to his throat, to his jaw, and suddenly his lips were beneath hers and they were different from the last time she had kissed him but somehow, also, they were exactly the same. 

For half a moment they were both still, her from the sudden agony of memory and him from... well, she didn't even want to consider what might be going through his head. But when she shook it off, so did he. Maybe it was the sudden movement of her body, still slick and fiery hot around his cock, or maybe it was the borderline hesitation with which she reinitiated the kiss, but either way his lips pressed back against hers with a desperation that seemed almost comparable to what burned in her own chest. She matched it immediately, and it took only a few heartbeats before she was fucking him again, chasing her orgasm with the same frenzied rhythm as before. 

The kiss, manic as it was, was softer even than some of the kisses they’d shared in the late years of their relationship, when the doctor had started to see a darker side of her friend and distrust had begun to consume and distort the affection between them. 

Some part of her wanted to start biting again, remind both of them exactly who it was they were kissing.

But another part, one that had been living in a buried trunk in the back of her brain until someone had come along and injected 13ml of alien sex hormones into it, wouldn’t let her ruin this. His lips tasted like falling in love, the way it had felt before either of them had learned to fear it. The way he moved against her felt like home and it had ripped a gaping maw of euphoria open in her chest, more agonizing and more lovely than anything the drug had thrown at her so far and she felt certain that if she pulled away from him for a moment it would snap shut and tear her apart. 

It was an impossible relief when her orgasm washed over her. Her hips snapped down one last time and the spark of pleasure finally caught, tearing through her like a match tossed into gasoline. Her world shrunk down and expanded again in an instant, everything gone but the chemicals coursing through her and the feather-light brush of the Master’s parted lips against her own. 

Then her senses returned to her. Slowly, for for an impossibly long half second, then all at once. 

The room was cold, every inch of her skin pulsing hot. The Master was, as she’d predicted, suddenly clammy and uncomfortable against her. There was still a part of her that almost wanted to rest against him for a moment, let the post-orgasm exhaustion wash over her, but it was fading fast to make way for reason and reality and her distaste for being touched. 

She didn’t quite scramble off his lap, but she moved too fast for her still-recovering legs and fell almost immediately back into the ash that stuck to her rapidly cooling body. She only paused there for a fraction of a second, just long enough to take in a single gasp of oxygen and reassert her control over her limbs, but when she let herself glance briefly back to the Master he was watching her. His eyes were vacant, disoriented, but still fixed on her. 

She looked away immediately, but a mess of emotions still prickled over her as she stood. There was pity, and hate, and that familiar gnawing sense of loss that may have been just a touch stronger than normal. If she’d had the energy for surprise, she might have felt it at the absence of disgust (self-directed or otherwise). 

But her limbs were throbbing, and her vision was fading in and out from the sudden rush of blood, and she only barely had the energy to falter over to the scattered piles of brightly colored fabric and pull them on. 

She could hear the Master, breathing heavily and but otherwise sitting perfectly still as she dressed as quickly as she could. Her shoes and coat were still beneath the makeshift lab and she padded over to them, splinters of glass and twisted steel digging into her feet through her socks and the carpet of ash. 

She numbly pulled on the coat, and the handful of vials still scattered across the table went into her pocket. Best to double check for any side effects he hadn’t found worth mentioning. Her body was impossibly heavy when she crouched to tie her shoes, and she paused with her hands on the laces, just for a second, just to breath. Behind her she heard the Master’s breathing shift, the faint creak of his neck as if he had turned to look at her. She tied her shoes in two quick, fluid motions and stood. 

She didn’t turn around though, only pulled the sonic from her pocket and started adjusting the settings to call the Tardis. She heard the Master stand, heard the rustle of fabric as he dusted the ash from his pants and pulled them on. 

She pointed the sonic at the far wall. Its hum echoed through the silent room, and she was striding towards the spot even before the box began to materialize. She’d expected to be glad beyond words to see her ship, but as she held up her hand against the cloud of ash kicked up in its wind and watched the air behind her fingers solidify to blue she only felt tired. Her hands were shaking from exhaustion, and the Tardis key bumped against the lock before sliding into place

She fully intended not to look back. She kept her eyes down as slipped through the doors, but just before she closed them softly they jumped without her consent to where the Master stood, his shirt in his hand, looking so small in the vast and burned up room. She half expected him to look away in shame, but he only stared at her with the same hopeless shock she’d seen on his face the last time she’d left him on this planet, all those months ago. Then the door clicked shut, and she let herself slump, her forehead pressed against the warm and familiar wood. She stayed there for a long moment, just listening to the thrum of the Tardis and her own shuddering exhales. 

She only realized she wasn’t alone a half second before Yaz spoke. 

“Doctor?”

Her voice was full of fear and hesitation. The Doctor cursed herself, and took a half second more to compose herself before turning to face her with a smile. It had been difficult enough to convince Yaz to let her confront the Master alone, and the last thing she wanted to do was let her know she’d been right to be nervous.

The human was standing by the console, eyes wide and worry etched into every inch of her face. 

“What happened?”

The Doctor did her best not to limp as she moved to the controls. “He just wanted to talk,” she said, keeping her eyes down as she set the Tardis on course for anywhere but there, flipping switches and adjusting dials at an uncharacteristically measured pace. She snuck a glance at her companion as she moved around the console. Yaz looked thoroughly unconvinced. The Doctor tried again. 

“I’m fine, aren't I? Wasn’t a _fun_ talk, sure. But I can handle the Master. I told you we used to be friends, didn’t I? A long time ago.”

Yaz bit her lip and nodded. The Doctor pulled the last lever, and the Tardis lurched into flight. Yaz stumbled and reached for the console, and the Doctor took advantage of the momentary distraction to pull the little mirror that swung around the control panel over to herself. _Oh,_ she thought. 

Yaz’s reaction had been more than reasonable. The Doctor ran her fingers through her hair as surreptitiously as she could, but there wasn't much she could do about the coating of ash or the ragged look in her eyes. She tried to blink it away, scrunching up her nose and baring her teeth, but when she relaxed the gaunt shadows under her eyes hadn’t moved. She was sure it was only a sign of the drugs that had torn so violently through her, but she didn’t imagine Yaz would find that information comforting. With a sigh, she rubbed away the clean lines where tears had fallen through the ash on her cheek. 

She glanced at Yaz, and of course she was watching again. The Doctor could see plain as anything that she was dying to question her her, but… well. She hadn’t exactly been emotionally open with her companion up to this point, and now the earth girl didn’t even have Ryan and Graham to team up with and force it out of her. The Doctor’s chest felt suddenly tight, and she turned away to lean against the console. She shut her eyes, but when Yaz’s breathing changed like she was going to speak she didn’t give her the chance. 

“He drugged me. I’m ok, but if I seem a bit tired that’s why.” The words came out fast and low, but overall calm enough. 

She heard Yaz move a few hesitant steps closer. The Doctor’s insides were raw and numb and she had been certain there was no room for a single additional emotion in her chest, but her hearts still managed to pang at her companion’s nervousness. She couldn’t remember the last time one of her friends had been afraid of her like this, and the feeling mixed with all of her own fear and pain from the past hour and sat like concrete in her gut. She wanted to tell Yaz that it was ok, that if she had something to say she should say it. She wanted to tell her she was sorry for making her feel like she couldn’t. She wanted to tell her about the Master, about their whole history, about _her_ whole history, the one she had only just discovered and couldn't forget for a single second no matter how hard she tried. 

But something stopped her. The crash from the drug trip was only getting worse with each passing minute, and there was no way to know how much of what she was feeling would stick around after she’d gotten some rest. She didn’t want to do anything else she’d regret. She was so tired of being pulled around by her emotions like a bull with a ring through his nose. 

But when she turned back around the expression on her companion’s face tore down the walls she’d already started putting back up like they were made of paper. Yaz’s eyes were still wide with anxiety, but there was a stubbornness now in the set of her lips and in the way her hands were clenched at her sides. The Doctor knew that subdued, frightened ferocity- it was one of her favorite things about the human. But she hadn't seen it like this, brimming with concern and pointed forcefully in her direction. 

“I can tell you’re not ok,” Yaz said, just the tiniest bit too quickly. “Maybe I’m not as brilliant as you, but I’m not stupid either.” 

Oh, that hurt. For a half second she was back in the burned up husk of a room listening to the Master raving about her ego. Then she blinked the memory away.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “Please.” 

Yaz paused, eyebrows pulled in almost imperceptibly. “Don’t what?”

The Doctor felt strange and distant. She couldn’t look at her companion, could barely get the words out. 

“I’m not smarter than you are,” she said, almost pleadingly. “I’m not… better. I’m just older.”

Yaz took another step closer and when the Doctor looked up her head was tilted, all aggression and fear melted away leaving only concern. There was a moment where the Doctor could see her pause, brain working to try and process the Time Lord's reaction. 

“I mean... you _are_ brilliant,” she finally said, and her voice was softer, but tinged with a forceful undercurrent of emotion. “Maybe it’s because you’re old, I don’t know. But-” she hesitated again, searching the Doctor’s face. “I don’t know anything about Time Lords, but I know a lot of old people. Meet a lot of them on the job. Some of them… some of them are brave, and kind, and smart, sometimes more than I would've ever thought was possible. But some of them are stupid and cruel and petty, too. I think people are who they choose to be, and even more so when you’re old because you’ve had years and years to be shaped by the choices you make.”

Yaz’s words cut through the post-drug fog, simple and comforting as a cool hand on a hot forehead. Of course she knew the reality was often more complicated than that, but... she'd also seen the evidence of what Yaz described with her own eyes too many times not to believe in it herself. Maybe it had been the drugs, or maybe she’d just been dwelling on it for too long beforehand, but it was like everything the Master had said had slipped right past her usual barriers of distrust and criticism and settled right at home in the core of her mind. She could still feel it there, a familiar amalgam of her own self hatred and her old friend’s anger and pain. But Yaz was right, even if she didn’t have the full picture, and no amount of self loathing could ever be stronger than that. 

She was silent for a long second as she cast around for... maybe the right words were a bit much to expect, but at least something not completely terrible.

“I know you’re not stupid," was all she finally said. "I only take the very best with me. Always have.” 

She moved to walk past Yaz, towards her bedroom, but as she passed the human she paused and carefully touched her shoulder in a way that she hoped was reassuring.

“Thank you, Yaz. And-” she almost didn’t say it, but she knew she had to. “I need to sleep. Don’t know how long I’ll be out, but when I wake up… there’s some things you should know. I should have told you before, but it’s been… ” She sighed and pulled her hand back. “I’m still not good at this sort of thing. But I promise, as soon as I wake up, we’ll talk.” 

Yaz smiled at her, and the expression was so full of cautious hope and affection that it almost hurt to look at. The Doctor returned the gesture (although she thought her own little smile probably only accentuated the exhaustion on her face) before walking away. 

Her mind was still crowded and unpleasant as she dragged her impossibly heavy body to the bedroom that was suddenly located right off the console room, but as she dropped herself onto the bedspread she realized the weight was nothing more than her usual brand of guilt and anxiety made new and heavy in the wake of the drugs. The memories of what she’d done with the Master lingered, but distantly, like they had been just an unpleasant adventure. Something she would certainly dwell on later, but not urgently painful.

She almost wondered about that, but the thought had barely formed before it slipped away, like shapes carved onto a beach fading beneath the ebb of an ocean, and she was asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: I didn't label noncon because the doctor does technically consent, but only after being drugged and given no pretty much no option. The Master's intentions are definitely to force her into sex and they are both fully aware of this. 
> 
> PLEASE leave me a comment I worked stupid hard on this.. I love thirteen so fucking much. Also there were two ways this could have gone, the way I did it with the Doctor almost giving up and the Master realizing how fucked up the situation was, or where she fights tooth and nail the entire time and he does the same. The second version would have been a lot heavier on the noncon elements though, so I went with the first. But I kind of want to try writing that version as well so if anybody would be interested let me know!


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